4thWaveNow reached out to Gallus Mag of GenderTrender after WordPress dumped the site yesterday. In her most recent post, Gallus Mag broke the full story of a Canadian MTF trans activist who has launched “human rights” complaints against a group of women’s salon workers who were unwilling to touch and wax male genitalia. GallusMag revealed other details about the activist’s prior social media activities, some of which pertained to underage girls.
GenderTrender’s importance as a groundbreaking investigative reporting outlet covering the excesses of transgender activism cannot be overestimated. The site has also served as an incubator and launching pad for many other bloggers and writers; 4thWaveNow’s founder counts herself among them. The loss of GenderTrender is a huge blow. It is also the latest casualty in a growing clash between–on one side, a loose coalition of feminists, parents, gay and lesbian people, detransitioners, free speech advocates, and many supporters; and on the other side, a collection of extremist transgender advocates who will tolerate no dissent from anyone, from any quarter.
Gallus Mag’s statement follows.
Statement:
by Gallus Mag of GenderTrender
WordPress.com pulled the plug on GenderTrender, TransgenderTropes101, RadfemReview, etc. on Friday November 16. I was notified via email by “Sal P.” of Automattic, the company that administers WordPress.com. He stated:
Publishing this type of content is forbidden by our Terms of Service, and as such your account has been suspended.
If you would like to continue publishing this type of information, you are free to export your content, and move it to a more appropriate WordPress host
To download your content and take it elsewhere, you can use the export tool below for a limited time:”
Presumably the “malicious publication of private details of a person’s gender identity” referred to Jonathan Yaniv, the subject of my final post on November 8. Since that post, Mr. Yaniv has been successful at using false DMCA requests to remove public information about himself from the internet (see Twitter and Facebook).
I wrote back to Automattic/WordPress.com and informed them of my longstanding policy to never post information from private sources (such as private social media accounts or Facebook groups, etc.) and reiterated the blog’s longstanding support of the rights of everyone affected by gender to hold their own beliefs without facing harassment or discrimination. I asked them to reinstate the blogs, as they had been suspended in error.
I received a response today, November 17, from an individual named “Knox”, who stated:
“Hello,
According to our Privacy Policy, the malicious publication of private details related to gender identity includes publishing former names. You can see more information regarding this policy at: https://en.support.wordpress.com/private-information/
If you would like to continue publishing this type of information, you are free to export your content, and move it to a more appropriate WordPress host
To download your content and take it elsewhere, you can use the export tool below for a limited time:”
This clarified for me that Automattic/Wordpress now considers the publishing of former names a form of malicious publication, if that individual declares a “transgender identity”. I looked at the portion of the TOS linked to by “Knox” and noted that five days after my post on Jonathan Yaniv’s human rights complaints against women who refused to wax his balls, Automattic/WordPress.com enacted a new, unannounced, change to their Terms of Service that redefined “the malicious publication of private details” to include any reference to the legal or former name of any individual who declares a transgender identity.
There are over 36,000 blogs on Automattic/WordPress.com that refer to the individual many know as Bruce Jenner. According to the new, unannounced TOS, these blogs are committing an act of malicious publication of Jenner’s private information and are subject to immediate removal from the platform without warning.
To be clear: As of November 13, 2018, the former life of any individual who now declares themselves transgender can never be referred to using materials which reveal the name they formerly used, even if it is their legal name, the name they used last week, or the name by which they are commonly known. For example, quoting news sources which identified serial killer “Donna Perry” by his former name Douglas Perry has become an act of “malicious publication” according to Automattic/WordPress.comwhich will result in sudden removal of the blog (and any other unrelated blogs by the same author) from the platform, without prior notification or opportunity for appeal, even if that post was made prior to the unannounced changes to the TOS.
Will this new policy be widely enforced? Of course not. I believe this change to the WordPress TOS was hastily conceived as a guise to censor lesbian and feminist authors who are critical of “gender identity” ideology, specifically those who investigate or critique the actors behind various political or judicial campaigns to limit the rights of women. I believe this change is a direct result of GenderTrender’s exposure of Jonathan Yaniv, the figure behind 16 Canadian human rights complaints against women who declined to wax his balls, as an alleged sexual predator. I believe this unannounced change to the TOS, applied retroactively without prior warning or notification, is a ruse to justify the specific targeted censorship of certain popular long running lesbian and feminist blogs who critique the ingrained (and sometimes criminal!) misogyny of the transgender movement. I believe this is an organized, intentional initiative by WordPress.com to eliminate lesbian and feminist criticism and exposure of the epidemic harassment, predation, and sex-specific terrorism of male bodied people upon female bodied people, regardless of their personal “identity”.
As for “The future of GenderTrender”(and the other websites): contrary to the kind offer of “Sal P.” and “Knox” of Automattic, it is not possible to simply transfer the site to another host. Only a “live” blog can be transferred to another host. This is why it took 8 months for an archive to be created for RadfemHub (which was only online for a year) after the failure to renew the domain account by the wealthy patron it was entrusted to took it offline. By taking GenderTrender offline, Automattic/WordPress.com has removed my access to my own work, specifically all media, images, screen caps and gifs published over 8 years in posts and comments. Their suggestion that I may export my content to another host is a fiction. Deleted blogs cannot be transferred. All media property posted on GenderTrender has been effectively stolen by Automattic/WordPress.com. Piecing 8 years of blog content together manually from recovered or found sources would be cost and time prohibitive. I have requested that Automattic provide me with a transferrable export of GenderTrender and my other blogs and am breathlessly awaiting their reply. /s
I do have personal copies of the text of most of my original posts. Maybe I’ll put some of them somewhere at some point.
I would like to thank everyone who supported GenderTrender, with your readership, contributions, re-posts, and your beautiful beautiful comments. You taught me so much. What an incredible honor. I’m especially sad for the elimination of certain contributor posts, especially “FTM Detransitioning Experience: Quitting T and Getting Back to Life As A Woman” which was always one of my top rated posts and a source of great comfort and information for women looking to get off testosterone, many of whom shared vital perspectives in the comments. Also some of the guest posts from women recovering from partnership with autogynephiles (“trans widows”) with extensive critical information in comments from other survivors. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to effectively safeguard your important work and contributions against the censorial power of the misogynist men running Automattic/WordPress.com who lack all ethics.
I believe what Automattic/WordPress.com is doing to lesbian and feminist bloggers is criminal. I support a Congressional Inquiry into the selective censorship conducted by US based social media and blogging platforms. I support government regulation of such companies as public utilities, subject to constitutional law regarding freedom of speech.
When it comes to the ruling elite’s corporate plunder and crimes against humanity, the U.S. national memory’s short and no one, not even its political henchmen, assume blame or suffer real consequences: take Halliburton and former chief executive and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney for example. Not only did Cheney plan and justify the invasion, occupation and pilferage of Iraq’s oil, gold bars and national museum treasures under treasonous false pretenses, but its subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR Inc.), overcharged the U.S. taxpayer to a tune of more than $2 billion due to collusion engendered by sole source contracting methods and shoddy accounting procedures. It’s even forgotten that Cheney received a $34 million payout from Halliburton when he joined the Vice President ticket in 2000, in advance of his unscrupulous maneuvers, according to news commentator, Chris Matthews; because on November 5th 2018, in celebration of its 100-year anniversary, its chief executives rang the New York Stock Exchange’s (NYSE) opening bell.
Sadly, as a nation, the U.S. doesn’t recall Cheney’s lies, or his role in planning the contemptible “Shock and Awe” saturation bombing campaign that destroyed a sovereign nation, which posed no threat to the United States, and left the world’s cradle of civilization in ruins. Conveniently, it doesn’t recall the over 500,000 deaths from war related causes, as reported by the Huffington Post in its 2017 updated article; nor does it recall that obliterating Iraq’s government created a sociopolitical vacuum that enabled the exponential growth of the CIA’s unique brand of Islamofascism and its resulting terrorism, which has culminated in war-torn Syria and Yemen.
Iraq’s only “crime” against the United States, if you want to call it that, was being hogtied by Washington’s sanctions and embargo against it – in what can only be called a Catch 22 situation. Iraq couldn’t do business with U.S. corporations not because Saddam Hussein was unwilling to, but because the U.S. government effectively barred Iraq from doing so. This Catch 22 situation is presently being repeated in Venezuela and Iran in advance of its planned invasion and occupation.
Then there is the cost of war itself: according to The Costs of War project at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, “The wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq (the war in Pakistan refers to U.S. counterterrorism efforts there, such as drone strikes and other efforts against al Qaeda) cost $4.4 trillion. Included in the cost are: direct Congressional war appropriations; war-related increases to the Pentagon base budget; veterans care and disability; increases in the homeland security budget; interest payments on direct war borrowing; foreign assistance spending; and estimated future obligations for veterans’ care. By 2053, interest payments on the debt alone could reach over $7 trillion.”
Keep in mind that the U.S. taxpayer directly subsidizes the profits of the military industrial complex, and oil & gas industries. Yet, no U.S. protests against Halliburton are found in the media later than 2007. And, there are no organized disinvestment campaigns of record.
So Wall Street celebrates Halliburton’s 100-year anniversary with a clear conscience, because no one has graffitied its large four column wide sign or is disinvested from its stock. The nation only recalls, according to IBTimes, in their 2013 article on Iraq war contracts, that Halliburton’s subsidiary, KBR, had the most: KBR’s war contracts totaled $39.5 billion in just a decade.
Other than the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission, which found Cheney and President Bush et al guilty of war crimes in absentia for the illegal invasion of Iraq, there remains no lasting acknowledgement in the U.S. consciousness of Cheney’s evil doings. Cheney had recent book deals and continues to ramble on with speaking engagements. He was scheduled by Cornell University to issue a keynote address as recent as May 2018. In short, the ruling elite protects those engaged in their dirty work until they prove unnecessary. In this regard, consider the fact that Saddam Hussein was a former CIA asset and a good corporate customer – as the weapons of mass destruction (WMD), he once possessed, were sold to him by the U.S. and Britain. However, according to the former United Nations (UN) chief weapon inspector, Scott Ritter, the UN destroyed Iraq’s stockpiles after the Persian Gulf War (1990-1991) – well before the 2003 invasion. This report was ignored because it contradicted the prevailing narrative that justified the invasion, occupation and looting of Iraq.
Just as the ruling elite engineered Saddam Hussein rise to power when he was useful, they ensured Cheney’s political ascent, and the success of his campaign against Iraq. To illustrate the persuasive power of the oil & gas industry in politics, note that according to Open Secrets.org, oil & gas lobbyists spent over $175M in 2009 (Obama’s first year in office). Of that amount, ExxonMobil spent the most at $27.4M and Chevron Corp., in second place, spent $20.8M. For the record, ExxonMobil and Chevron are successors of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. Prior to President Obama & Vice President Biden, the Oil & Gas Industry lobbyists spent approximately half that amount at $86.5M in 2007. Thus, Bush & Cheney represented a 50% savings for oil & gas lobbyists.
When seeking to “out” the elite, keep in mind that the Rockefeller clan describe themselves “as ExxonMobil’s longest continuous shareholders.” In Iraq, ExxonMobil has a 60% share of a $50 billion market contract developing the 9-billion-barrels southern West Qurna Phase I field, and ExxonMobil is expanding its oil & gas holdings into the semiautonomous Kurdish region in the country’s north.
Within this context, the enemy is not a corporate office, an oilrig, pipeline or refinery; it’s the ruling elite that own and control the means of production. If people of conscience don’t hold them accountable for their crimes, they will continue to commit them in countries such as Venezuela and Iran, which are presently locked in their sights. While henchmen change, the ruling elite remains. Why should the U.S. allow its military and secret service to be pimped out as corporate stooges and glorified security guards?
Imperialism is insatiable and fascism expedient. The time to hold the ruling elite accountable is now before another invasion and occupation is executed against a fake enemy that just so happens to coincidentally have a large desirable oil reserve. Let’s follow Iceland’s lead and seek the prosecution of white-collar criminals that hide behind a facade of corporate stock holdings now, before its too late and they strike again in Venezuela and Iran.
So for Halliburton’s 100-year anniversary wish, let’s wish its stock tanks and that its guilty are remembered, held accountable, and that justice is ultimately served.
Lauren Smith has a BA in Politics, Economics and Society from SUNY at Old Westbury and an MPA in International Development Administration from New York University. Her historical fiction novel based on Nicaragua’s 1979 revolution is due out in 2019.
The latest Living Planet report from the WWF makes for grim reading: a 60% decline in wild animal populations since 1970, collapsing ecosystems, and a distinct possibility that the human species will not be far behind. The report repeatedly stresses that humanity’s consumption is to blame for this mass extinction, and journalists have been quick to amplify the message. The Guardian headline reads “Humanity has wiped out 60% of animal populations”, while the BBC runs with “Mass wildlife loss caused by human consumption”. No wonder: in the 148-page report, the word “humanity” appears 14 times, and “consumption” an impressive 54 times.
There is one word, however, that fails to make a single appearance: capitalism. It might seem, when 83% of the world’s freshwater ecosystems are collapsing (another horrifying statistic from the report), that this is no time to quibble over semantics. And yet, as the ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer has written, “finding the words is another step in learning to see”.
Although the WWF report comes close to finding the words by identifying culture, economics, and unsustainable production models as the key problems, it fails to name capitalism as the crucial (and often causal) link between these things. It therefore prevents us from seeing the true nature of the problem. If we don’t name it, we can’t tackle it: it’s like aiming at an invisible target.
Why capitalism?
The WWF report is right to highlight “exploding human consumption”, not population growth, as the main cause of mass extinction, and it goes to great lengths to illustrate the link between levels of consumption and biodiversity loss. But it stops short of pointing out that capitalism is what compels such reckless consumption. Capitalism – particularly in its neoliberal form – is an ideology founded on a principle of endless economic growth driven by consumption, a proposition that is simply impossible.
No extinction risk for ‘commodity species’. Baronb / shutterstock
Industrial agriculture, an activity that the report identifies as the biggest single contributor to species loss, is profoundly shaped by capitalism, not least because only a handful of “commodity” species are deemed to have any value, and because, in the sole pursuit of profit and growth, “externalities” such as pollution and biodiversity loss are ignored. And yet instead of calling the irrationality of capitalism out for the ways in which it renders most of life worthless, the WWF report actually extends a capitalist logic by using terms such as “natural assets” and “ecosystem services” to refer to the living world.
By obscuring capitalism with a term that is merely one of its symptoms – “consumption” – there is also a risk that blame and responsibility for species loss is disproportionately shifted onto individual lifestyle choices, while the larger and more powerful systems and institutions that are compelling individuals to consume are, worryingly, let off the hook.
Who is ‘humanity,’ anyway?
The WWF report chooses “humanity” as its unit of analysis, and this totalising language is eagerly picked up by the press. The Guardian, for example, reports that “the global population is destroying the web of life”. This is grossly misleading. The WWF report itself illustrates that it is far from all of humanity doing the consuming, but it does not go as far as revealing that only a small minority of the human population are causing the vast majority of the damage.
Global map of Ecological Footprint of consumption, 2014. Although the WWF report highlights disparity in consumption, it says nothing about the capitalism which produces this pattern. WWF Living Planet
From carbon emissions to ecological footprints, the richest 10% of people are having the greatest impact. Furthermore, there is no recognition that the effects of climate and biodiversity collapse are overwhelming felt by the poorest people first – the very people who are contributing least to the problem. Identifying these inequalities matters because it is this – not “humanity” per se – that is the problem, and because inequality is endemic to, you guessed it, capitalist systems (and particularly their racist and colonial legacies).
The catch-all word “humanity” papers over all of these cracks, preventing us from seeing the situation as it is. It also perpetuates a sense that humans are inherently “bad”, and that it is somehow “in our nature” to consume until there is nothing left. One tweet, posted in response to the WWF publication, retorted that “we are a virus with shoes”, an attitude that hints at growing public apathy.
But what would it mean to redirect such self-loathing towards capitalism? Not only would this be a more accurate target, but it might also empower us to see our humanity as a force for good.
Breaking the story
Words do so much more than simply assign blame to different causes. Words are makers and breakers of the deep stories that we construct about the world, and these stories are especially important for helping us to navigate environmental crises. Using generalised references to “humanity” and “consumption” as drivers of ecological loss is not only inaccurate, it also perpetuates a distorted view of who we are and what we are capable of becoming.
By naming capitalism as a root cause, on the other hand, we identify a particular set of practices and ideas that are by no means permanent nor inherent to the condition of being human. In doing so, we learn to see that things could be otherwise. There is a power to naming something in order to expose it. As the writer and environmentalist Rebecca Solnit puts it:
Calling things by their true names cuts through the lies that excuse, buffer, muddle, disguise, avoid, or encourage inaction, indifference, obliviousness. It’s not all there is to changing the world, but it’s a key step.
The WWF report urges that a “collective voice is crucial if we are to reverse the trend of biodiversity loss”, but a collective voice is useless if it cannot find the right words. As long as we – and influential organisations such as the WWF, in particular – fail to name capitalism as a key cause of mass extinction, we will remain powerless to break its tragic story.
It is very difficult for me to live in this culture.
I just can’t psychologically survive in the high performance society, where everyone is passionately exploiting themselves, while all life on this planet is being destroyed.
I have severe depression and anxiety disorders, and I have to take good care of myself to be able to take care of my son.
It is very difficult for people who have never experienced poverty to understand what poverty means. The constant nagging fear. The permanent stress and psychological terror of state authorities on which you are dependent, that harass you and try to keep you small and oppressed.
Now they want me to work underpaid, shitty jobs again. I already had a stroke not long ago. I can’t do these jobs and I can‘t stand the pressure.
I live in the age of the greatest mass extinction in 65 million years. And the cause of this mass extinction is our glorious western civilization.
Empire.
Indeed, almost all imperial forces have joined into one: The West.
“In the last eighteen months, the greatest build-up of military forces since World War Two — led by the United States — is taking place along Russia’s western frontier…The United States is encircling China with a network of bases, with ballistic missiles, battle groups, nuclear -armed bombers,” writes John Pilger.
Looks like the West is encircling the strongest probable future enemies, preparing for war.
Full spectrum dominance.
The understanding of the fact that this culture is always at war, and will indeed kill all life on planet earth made me shift my loyalty and become an activist.
My loyalty does not belong to empire and industrial capitalism. My loyalty belongs to the suppressed, the poor, the dying planet.
Where are you when we need people to take responsibility for our fellow creatures, human and nonhuman, and defend them? Always working on your professional self-fulfillment, performing until you burn out.
Do you distract yourself so manically with your work, so you don’t have to see what is happening around us? That the insects disappear, the songbirds disappear, the masses impoverish?
That the West is already bombing the near and middle east to ashes and dust and prepares for more, while you try to overtake yourself, become faster and better, without even stopping once to understand the obvious fact that this system is heading for collapse?
Instead you wonder where all the refugees come from. (Of course they come for a share of the cake of our western wealth, they might even try to take your precious job! You better join one of the aspiring right-wing movements.)
Imperialism creates the illusion of wealth as far as the masses are concerned. It usually serves to hide the fact that the ruling classes are gobbling up the natural resources of the home territory in an improvident manner and are otherwise utilizing the national wealth largely for their own purposes. Eventually the general public is called upon to pay for all of this, frequently after the military machine can no longer maintain external aggression.
–Jack Forbes
Capitalism 2.0 comes with a like-button and a smiling emoji, and it will always tell you that everything is fine.
Capitalism is exploitation, but neoliberalism is the smart self-exploitation of the alienated and indoctrinated individual. Exploitation on steroids.
Indoctrination is cheaper and more efficient than violence. It is thus called “soft power.” It works with research-based psycho-politics, and the smart manipulation of human feelings and desires.
Capitalism creates an exploited class of workers that will probably organize and resist (as it did many times).
Neoliberalism creates a population of totally alienated and indoctrinated machine-like zombies, who suppress their own humanity. Each individual a perfect slave, with a software programmed in its brain. Owner Inside®.
Zombie apocalypse.
You might already be a zombie, living in your middle class-bubble or your digital hallucination, but I am still a human being, sensitive as a frightened child, with a healthy portion of empathy and love. I‘m trying to live awake and conscious in this real, physical world, and what I see is mass extinction, ecological catastrophe and imperialist wars. Trauma.
Facing the truth isn’t easy.
I carry a trauma with me from reading A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartolome de Las Casas.
I carry a trauma with me from reading Jack Forbes’ Only Approved Indians. He writes: “If a creature learns to completely accept captivity or slavery, if they erase all thoughts of freedom, they can suppress the pain. But if one wants to be free, one has to face the pain; one has to agonize, to suffer, through all of the terror.”
That’s where you are. Completely accepting captivity and slavery, driving out the pain.
That‘s where I am. Going through all the terror. Trying to free myself (and the world) of this culture.
I carry a trauma with me from reading Derrick Jensen‘s Endgame.
And I carry a deep trauma with me from seeing that he is right, from seeing my fellow beings and relatives disappear, the insects, the birds, the amphibians, all of my beloved nature, in rapid decline.
I most certainly carry a lot of trauma with me from my parents and grandparents, since I was born only 34 years after World War II. I certainly carry a trauma from watching all the documentaries and from visiting the concentration camp in Dachau.
You do not understand my language. I can say what I want, but you don‘t understand. You do not even understand the language “stroke” (red alert; Individual doesn’t function anymore within this insane culture).
Government to medical complex: Repair individual and re-integrate into the machine.
Sorry, doesn’t work for me. I’m out.
I need a lot of quiet and peaceful time to deal with all the trauma. I can’t just rush through my life and work ever harder to help to accomplish the neoliberal agenda and make Europe more competitive for the global economy (that’s how the politicians sold it to us; in fact, the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, as always).
Mental illnesses such as depression or burnout are the expression of a deep crisis of freedom. They are a pathological sign that today freedom often turns into coercion. We think we are free today. But in reality we exploit ourselves passionately until we collapse…
Neoliberalism is even capable of exploiting freedom itself. The performance society creates more productivity than the disciplinary society, because it makes excessive use of freedom. It doesn’t exploit against freedom, but it exploits freedom itself. Everything that belongs to practices and expressions of freedom, such as emotion, play and communication, is now exploited. It is not efficient to exploit someone against his or her will. With the external exploitation, the yield is very small. Only self-exploitation, as the exploitation of freedom, produces the greatest yield. The first stage of burnout syndrome is, paradoxically, euphoria. Euphorically I plunge into the work. In the end I collapse and slide into depression.
While several groups and individuals are lobbying for extended transgender rights at law, Women Speak Tasmania is working on a comprehensive series of policies to address changes in the law that have promoted the rights of transgender persons ahead of the sex-based rights of women.
“We have drafted two policy position papers, initially, that consider transgender rights and women’s rights in anti-discrimination law, and in the law regarding changes to sex markers on birth certificates,” said spokesperson, Bronwyn Williams. “These policies have been forwarded to all members of the Tasmanian Parliament for comment.
“Under our proposals, the terms ‘gender’ and ‘gender identity’ will be removed from the relevant legislation, and ‘gender identity’ will be replaced with ‘social identity’ as a protected characteristic under the Anti-discrimination Act 1998 (Tas). ‘Biological sex’ will become a protected characteristic under the Act.
“‘Gender’ and ‘gender identity’ are confusing concepts that are not adequately defined in the current law. ‘Social identity’ more accurately describes the incongruence with biological sex that characterises transgenderism.
“We want to end the confusion,” said Miss Williams. “We also believe there should be no changes to sex markers on birth certificates. Birth certificates are historical records that serve a number of demographic functions and inform both government policy and legislation in a wide range of areas.
“We propose, instead, a process of application for a Recognition Certificate, to be issued after consideration by a dedicated, properly constituted Board.
“It’s time we take stock and re-assess laws that have given us the ultimate legal fiction – where biological males can be declared legally female. This fiction has already eroded the rights of women and girls to female-only spaces and services. If male-bodied people are permitted to be legally recognised as female on the basis of self-identification alone, as proposed by groups like Transforming Tasmania, women’s sex-based rights will be a thing of the past.”
RIO GRANDE VALLEY, Texas— The Trump administration announced today that it will waive dozens of environmental laws to speed border-wall construction through protected Rio Grande Valley property, including a national wildlife refuge and famed butterfly center.
“The Trump administration is ignoring thousands of people in Hidalgo County who don’t want these disastrous border walls,” said Laiken Jordahl, borderlands campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Rio Grande Valley is one of the most spectacular and biologically important landscapes in the country. Every acre is irreplaceable. We’ll do everything in our power to stop this destruction.”
The waiver, to take effect Thursday, is intended to speed about 18 miles of border-wall construction by sweeping aside 28 bedrock environmental and public-health laws that protect clean air, clean water, public lands and endangered wildlife. This is the fifth time the Trump administration has used the REAL ID waiver. The Center is considering whether to challenge the waiver in court.
The waiver is being issued during a comment period for border-wall construction in Hidalgo County, where so far more than 8,500 people say they oppose the plan. U.S. Customs and Border Protection opened the comment periodin September after the Center and 42 groups requested public input. Comments remain open until Nov. 6.
“It’s appalling that the Trump administration is willing to seize family farms by eminent domain and bulldoze beautiful nature reserves that support the local economy,” Jordahl said. “Trump is ripping the Rio Grande Valley in two for political sport. His despicable disregard for the law and the borderlands must be stopped.”
A 2017 study by the Center identified more than 90 endangered or threatened species that would be threatened by wall construction along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. Endangered and threatened species in the area include the ocelot, jaguarundi and aplomado falcon, as well as a host of migratory birds.
The Center is suing the Trump administration over its use of the long-expired waiver for border-wall construction at the Santa Teresa Port of Entry in New Mexico. The Center is also appealing a federal court ruling in its lawsuit to stop the border wall replacement project near San Diego.
Beyond jeopardizing wildlife, endangered species and public lands, the U.S.-Mexico border wall is part of a larger strategy of ongoing border militarization that damages human rights, civil liberties, native lands, local businesses and international relations. The border wall impedes the natural migrations of people and wildlife that are essential to healthy diversity.
The proposal seeks to waive these laws:
The National Environmental Policy Act
The Endangered Species Act
The Clean Water Act
The National Historic Preservation Act
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act
The Migratory Bird Conservation Act
The Clean Air Act
The Archeological Resources Protection Act
The Paleontological Resources Preservation Act
The Federal Cave Resources Protection Act
The Safe Drinking Water Act
The Noise Control Act
The Solid Waste Disposal Act
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act
The Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act
The Antiquities Act
The Historic Sites, Buildings, and Antiquities Act
The Farmland Protection Policy Act
The Coastal Zone Management Act
The Federal Land Policy and Management Act
The National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act
The National Fish and Wildlife Act
The Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act
The Administrative Procedure Act
The River and Harbors Act
The Eagle Protection Act
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
